"I’m going to come right out and say this: I don’t like Handel. The overly stuffy formal structures and frivolous ornamentation of the high Baroque will never top my list. I find the Messiah static and trite, and Handel’s operas no more exciting than the bassline of Pachelbel’s canon. I’ve only found glimpses of redemption in his output, like the moody D minor Sarabande and brief coloratura passages in Giulio Cesare.

If anyone were to sway my Handelian hatred, it is unsurprising that it would be Pacific MusicWorks, the ...

BEMF's two latest CD releases - Steffani's Niobe, Regina di Tebe and Charpentier's La Descente d'Orphée aux Enfers - have received a host of major international awards and recognition in 2015. The prestigious honors include a 2015 GRAMMY Award, two 2015 ECHO Klassik Awards, a 2015 Diapason d'Or de l'Année, a 2015 German Record Critics' Award, and two appearances on the Gramophone Awards shortlist! ...

"COMING late in Handel’s “Messiah,” the glittering instrumental solo in “The Trumpet Shall Sound” is one of the most recognizable trumpet parts in music. This time of year, its rousing opening fanfare and serenely gleaming lyrical passages can be heard in concert halls and churches all over the country, part of a bass aria that becomes one of this beloved oratorio’s emotional highlights, charged with hope, mystery and awe. ...

"France’s leading young harpsichordist performs works by two masters of the French Baroque. No surprises there, perhaps … but the harpsichordist in question is Jean Rondeau and the album is called Vertigo. It conceives the harpsichord in vividly theatrical terms. Vertigo takes its name from a dramatic, rhapsodic piece by Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer, who, along with Jean-Philippe Rameau, forms the focus of this album. If Rameau (1683–1764) is the better-known composer today, especially admired for such operatic masterpieces as Hippolyte et Aricie and Platée, the younger Royer (1705–1755) was also a major figure in his time, rising to become master of music at the court of Louis XV. Both Rameau and Royer excelled ...

"Four Nations Ensemble Announces partnership with the Clark Art Institute in three concerts.

On January 30 at 6 PM The Four Nations Ensemble and the Clark Museum inaugurate a series of concerts inspired by paintings in the great collection and calling upon the Ensemble and remarkable guest artists to ...

"A panel of federal judges has ordered Pandora Media Inc. and other Internet radio stations to pay higher royalties for sound recordings in a ruling that could have broad ramifications for the music industry. ...

"The question of autonomy versus authority has different connotations and sometimes very specific meanings in philosophy, law, the political realm, medicine, and religion. Broadly speaking, authority is defined as the power to enforce laws and/or to determine a baseline of information or standards. In a musicological context as relates to the sources of historical music, authoritative status is given to early printed sources of music, or given to very specific literal descriptions of a particular aspect of performance practice. Autonomy is defined as ...

Xuriach in collaboration with the Museum of History of Catalonia, proposes an annual course on ancient dance of the masters of dance between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries which have reached us through treaties and manuscripts, or through forms of oral tradition. ...

"The International Course on Medieval Music Performance offers singers and instrumentalists the possibility to study monophonic and polyphonic repertoires composed in the 12th and 13th centuries. The course masterfully combines rigorous musicological research with a vibrant reconstruction of performance practice.

"... For around 35 years, Binkley was one of early music’s foremost performers, scholars, and educators, particularly in the area of medieval music. His recordings with his colleagues in the Studio der frühen Musik—Andrea von Ramm, Sterling Jones, and at different times, singers Nigel Rogers, Richard Levitt, and Willard Cobb—brought to the table ...

"... When it comes to adapting Shakespeare for film, fidelity to the source material is considered paramount – even if that clashes with the vision of the filmmaker in charge. One criticism that could be leveled at Justin Kurzel’s gritty, grotty take on Macbeth is that the realistic edge the director brings to the project is blunted whenever a character opens their mouth to speak. ...

"The American countertenor Bejun Mehta exhibited a considerable range of vocal colours, refined phrasing and spectacular virtuosity in this programme of Baroque cantatas and arias, with La Nuova Musica, under the direction of the ensemble’s founder, David Bates. ...

"The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek is the English translation of Franco Montanari’s Vocabolario della Lingua Greca, based on the completely revised 3rd Italian edition published in 2013 by Loescher Editore, Torino. With an established reputation as the most important modern dictionary for Ancient Greek, it brings together 140,000 headwords taken from the literature, papyri, inscriptions and other sources of the archaic period up to the 6th Century CE, and occasionally beyond. ...

"There are many great books on the historical performance practices of Baroque music. Although the books have nothing to do with guitar, they are valuable because they approach performance practice from a universal musical perspective. Much of performance practice, after all, should be the same on guitar as it will be on strings or keyboards. But there are differences too and there are many opportunities to learn from our earlier plucked ancestors. Peter Croton, early music performer on guitar and lute (and more), and teacher at the world-renowned Schola Cantorum Basiliensis as well as at the Conservatories of Basel and Bern has tackled the task of making a handbook that will bring the new and old worlds together. In his book, Croton has the best of both worlds: a wealth of period sources and universal musical knowledge as well as specific reference to lute, Baroque guitar, and other plucked instruments and composers of the era. ...

"The Gregorian Institute of Canada is please to announce its 11th Annual Colloquium, to be held at St. Augustine’s Seminary, Toronto, ON, August 11-14. Our plans include a series of practical chant workshops ranging from introductory to advanced, featuring the outstanding clinician Adam Bartlett, composer and editor of Simple English Propers (CMAA, 2011), and editor of the Lumen Christi Missal, Lumen Christi Simple Gradual, and Lumen Christi Hymnal (Illuminare Publications, 2012-2015). Active as a teacher, workshop leader and speaker, Adam has travelled widely offering catechetical and training workshops on topics of Catholic sacred music and liturgical chant. ...

"The is the second of two posts examining tempo and pitch in early music. Naturally, we can only speculate as to the precise nature and relative importance of tempo and pitch in historical times. But we can certainly point out how specialists and performers of what we call early music today have misconstrued scant available information on tempo and pitch to reinforce a thoroughly modern aesthetic. Also, where tempo and pitch were ...

By Bach's time, the traditional forms of church service had been fundamentally altered by the Reformation, and in German churches Latin had yielded to the country's own language. To an extent, however, ...

"On October 28 the Reiss Engelhorn Museum (REM) in Mannheim, Germany, filed a lawsuit against the Wikimedia Foundation for making high-resolution images of public domain artworks from its collection available for download. The contested images include photos of works by the Rococo painter Anna Dorothea Therbusch, the Flemish still life painter Alexander Coosemans, and the Dutch Golden Age painter Jacob Ochtervelt, as well as a drawing of Michelangelo’s Moses by Peter Anton von Verschaffelt and Cäsar Willich‘s circa-1862 portrait of Richard Wagner. ...

“Bach had how many kids?!?” exclaimed students at Foster Elementary School when told that Johann Sebastian fathered 20 children. Bach Society Houston’s new pilot project Bach in Schools is a 50-minute presentation for elementary school students focusing on J.S. Bach’s life and music, featuring live performers from the Bach Society’s orchestra and professional choir, and a real harpsichord. ...

"Cambridge Early Music’s prestigious 2016 Festival of the Voice will run between Thursday 12 – Sunday 15 May [2016]. It will showcase many of the world's finest early music artists including: Vox Luminis, Voces8, The Gesualdo Six, Three Medieval Tenors and James Gilchrist, who will perform an eclectic range of music from medieval Conductus, Monteverdi, Lassus, Bach, Schubert and many others in some of Cambridge’s most beautiful and historic venues. ...

Editor's Tips

------------------------------

EarlyMusicNews.org

RSS
Newsfeed

To activate your newsfeed, click o­n the newsfeed icon next to your
browser's URL window (if the newsfeed icon is missing choose this link:
EarlyMusicNews Feed
and choose your setting for the feed. You will then be able to see any
news additions to the site in your "Bookmarks" or "Favourites"
toolbar without even visiting the site. If you find a particular item
of interest, choose that item and you will be taken to the
http://www.EarlyMusicNews.org site to read that particular article. Feeds
for
specific news categories are also available on the “News
Categories” page. (ed.)

------------------------------

Follow Us On

------------------------------

Translate this Website

------------------------------

Editor's Desk

----------
Get Mentioned On Our Pages!

Post your news item o­n your website and let us know of it. We will then
publish a short excerpt of your news item linking it back to your site.

The “Summer Workshop and Festival 2016” season has come and gone!
Have you posted a review of a recent workshop on your site or blog page?
Let us know and we will mention it on our news pages. Feel
free to browse our summer workshops list,
it is never too early to plan for the next
installment of summer workshops. Let us know if we have missed a
workshop listing or if updated information is needed. Summer
Workshop Organizers: let us know of your plans as your summer
workshop details are finalized for 2017. Visit ourSummer Workshop Links
("Web Links" section) for past/next year summer workshop details.
Should you wish, you may also browse our news articles filtered by
“Workshops/ Festivals 2016” category for more “up-to-the-minute” details
of this year’s workshops.

----------

MAGNATUNE

Listen to Magnatune while browsing this site. Choose the Genre->Artist->Work and music will be streamed to your computer while browsing this site. Play buttons are included. There is a great selection of Early Music available. (ed.)